Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - What sort of steel is this please? (Indian blade)

Philip · 29th January 2009, 07:23 AM

I tend to think that the surface patterning is due to layering, and as such it would be a form of pattern-weld. The effect, which reminds me of pamor or hada, appears to be too continuous to be the crystalline dendrites which are the characteristic of wootz. The eye can follow the lines in the pattern for a distance, whereas the visual impression given by wootz tends to be like flowing water: there is a current but the individual ripples aren't contiguous. Furthermore, in the two pics I see what look like pockets of black carbon which are oriented along the undulating lines. These look like the cold-shuts resulting from imperfect welds which sometimes occur in the production of a pattern-welded or folded-steel lamellar blade.

29th January 2009, 07:23 AM	#4
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	I tend to think that the surface patterning is due to layering, and as such it would be a form of pattern-weld. The effect, which reminds me of pamor or hada, appears to be too continuous to be the crystalline dendrites which are the characteristic of wootz. The eye can follow the lines in the pattern for a distance, whereas the visual impression given by wootz tends to be like flowing water: there is a current but the individual ripples aren't contiguous. Furthermore, in the two pics I see what look like pockets of black carbon which are oriented along the undulating lines. These look like the cold-shuts resulting from imperfect welds which sometimes occur in the production of a pattern-welded or folded-steel lamellar blade.